Two North Koreans Said to Be Arrested for Alleged Plot to Murder Defector

By Bomi Lim -
Apr 21, 2010

South Korean prosecutors arrested
two North Koreans on suspicion they were sent to murder the
highest-ranking member of the communist regime ever to defect,
an intelligence official said.

Two men were detained yesterday after confessing they came
to South Korea to kill Hwang Jang Yop, who defected in 1997, a
press official at the National Intelligence Service said by
phone today in Seoul. Yonhap News reported on the arrests
yesterday.

The men entered South Korea this year and confessed to
being special agents of North Korea’s Ministry of People’s Armed
Forces, the official said, declining to be named in accordance
with agency policy. Prosecutors at the Seoul Central District
Prosecutors’ Office couldn’t be reached for comment. North
Korea’s official Korea Central News Agency hasn’t commented.

Tensions have risen on the peninsula since a South Korean
warship sank last month close to the disputed maritime border
following an unexplained explosion. North Korea on April 17
denied it was responsible after South Korea’s initial
investigation indicated an external blast caused the incident.

Vocal Critic

Hwang, 87, served as a secretary on North Korea’s ruling
Workers’ Party and a chairman on the Supreme People’s Assembly,
the country’s parliament. He is a vocal critic of Kim Jong Il’s
regime and lives under constant police protection.

The two North Koreans, identified as Kim Myong Ho and Tong
Myong Kwan, entered South Korea via Thailand, posing as
defectors, Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported today, citing
officials at the intelligence service and prosecutors it didn’t
identify. They were on a mission to “slit Hwang Jang Yop’s
throat,” the paper said.

Kim and Tong, both 36, were trained as special agents since
2004 to infiltrate South Korea and assassinate high-ranking
officials, Chosun said.

North Korea earlier this month said it will scrap a 12-
year-old joint mountain resort project, freezing some South
Korean assets. The North’s military today told Seoul-based
Hyundai Asan Corp., the operator of the Mount Geumgang resort,
it will conduct a final survey of the assets at the resort
starting tomorrow, Hyundai said in an e-mailed statement.

South Korea and North Korea remain technically at war since
their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire that was never
replaced by a peace treaty.